


Pattern and Repetition

by osmia



Category: Bletchley Circle
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Murder, Past Domestic Violence, Post-Canon, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osmia/pseuds/osmia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no Official Secrets Act to suggest they ought to part ways this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pattern and Repetition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Irmelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irmelin/gifts).



> Have a wonderful Yuletide! I expect this will have to be re-tagged with 'canon divergence' when season two comes out but I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing these characters!

They keep in touch afterwards, of course. After Bletchley, it had felt – to Susan at least – that to adhere properly to the Official Secrets Act, it was best they go their separate ways. Once Millie had made it clear to Susan that she was forgiven for not writing in the intervening years, she joked that it had perhaps been an overzealous interpretation on Susan’s part. 

This time is different. They had worked for themselves, for women who couldn’t trust the police to bring their killer to justice, with no binding Acts to suggest they ought to part company. Susan and Jean are frequent dinner guests at Millie and Lucy’s now shared flat. Claire and Sam begged for a dog, so walks through Victoria Park are an excuse to catch up. 

The world isn’t quite ready to laud them for finding Crowley, and none of them are especially displeased about this. Millie’s hand curls around an imaginary gun in her sleep and she wakes halfway through most nights, sweat gathering on her arms and face. Lucy does her best to keep to herself, taking a job with Jean at the library and thanking her lucky stars Harry was never much for reading. 

Jean, the others have realised, is surprisingly well-connected for someone so austere and solitary of habits. Word of mouth spreads their accomplishment through London – only that they did solve a murder, not which one or any of the details, of course – and they find themselves solving slightly less demanding mysteries in much the same manner, occasionally tracking down errant teenage daughters and unfaithful husbands. This suits Susan just fine, and she busies herself working through whatever Jean throws her to keep from rattling around the house all day. 

When a string of men appear beaten and bloody in laneways across the city, unable to identify their assailant to the police, they are able to attribute the attacks to a young woman taking the law into her own hands. A friend of Jean’s ‘lets slip’ that all the men had avoided prosecution for assaults in the last decade. Millie bundles the vigilante onto a train bound for Edinburgh the next day. When Deputy Commissioner Wainwright asks Susan if she has any ideas as to who might be behind it all, she blinks and says “No, I’m truly sorry you wasted your time coming here.”

They definitely don’t fall out of touch, but the others never visit Susan’s house. It’s not unintentional; Timothy does not yet trust that they won’t fall down similar rabbit holes to the one that led to being held at gunpoint and pulled away by strange and dangerous men on trains, and Susan isn’t keen to arouse further suspicion. So, when Susan walks past her sitting room one morning, months after Crowley died – although ‘died’ can never properly express what happened – and the others all rise abruptly from the chairs they have been sitting in, heavy winter coats swishing around their calves, she stops dead and her heart shudders in her chest. 

“Millie?” she asks, praying it’s a lost dog, or Lucy’s birthday and the date simply slipped her mind. Anything to wipe clean the tense atmosphere of the room, to soothe her friends’ clenched fists. Realising they are alone in the house, since Timothy is at work and the children are at school, she adds, “How did you all get in here?”

Millie has a key, of course she has a key, but the rising fear that something terrible has happened is enough to cause Susan to forget giving it to her. “ _Just in case you and Lucy need somewhere to flee to in a hurry_ ,” she had said. 

“We have a copycat, dear,” Jean says, kindly, but the implicit horror is evident on Lucy and Millie’s faces, their mouths set in grim lines and Lucy’s hair slightly astray. Millie holds out a newspaper. It’s folded neatly but the corner is crumpled and smudged from being clutched too tight. Half the headline shows, ‘- _found under disused railway bridge_ -’ and Susan steels herself. “Didn’t you see the paper this morning?”

“I overslept,” she says, her voice far away as she takes the paper from Millie’s hand. “I haven’t had the chance to read it.” Millie takes her by the other hand and leads her to the couch while Susan unfolds the paper. Jean and Lucy sit down again, but the stiff lines of their backs are echoes of someone still standing to deliver bad news. 

“Is this the first victim?” The question is to Lucy, who closes her eyes, entertaining the possibility that other recent disappearances and murders may be connected to this one, this copycat. She’s well suited as a librarian, Susan thinks, and it isn’t the first time the thought has occurred to her since Lucy took the job. 

“Yes,” Lucy says, quickly, opening her eyes. “This is the first one.” 

“Why would anyone imitate murders that have already been solved?” Millie asks. Millie, Susan knows, has patience for neither murderers nor stupidity. 

“Because they weren’t solved, were they?” Susan answers, voice spurred by clarity and picking up in volume. Something clicks in her head in moments like these, where terrible events cease to be purely horrifying and take on the edges and rules of a trigonometry problem. She wonders sometimes if that’s how Lucy feels, with all those facts tucked away. “Not by the police. Not by the people ordinary citizens respect in these matters.” Distantly, she thinks that she no longer considers herself especially ordinary. 

“Yes, but you’re forgetting one thing, Susan,” Jean says, voice irritated, but not pointed. “While I don’t doubt someone could listen to the wireless and gather enough facts on Crowley’s methods to imitate him, the public doesn’t know that the police didn’t solve those murders.”

Susan nods. “Exactly. And none of us have murdered anyone recently, have we?” Millie looks stricken at this, and Susan cringes. She has tried to talk to Millie about what happened, but Millie just reaches for her cigarettes and tells Susan she’s all right, the smoke curling through the air hiding any expression on her face that may indicate otherwise. Susan shoots her an apologetic look and continues, “Who else knows we solved the Crowley case, and how?”

“The police,” Millie says, her hand, still holding Susan’s, tightening in understanding. Susan smiles. It’s grim, but the kind of support and fellowship she feels around these women is unparalleled, especially in hard times like these. 

“Let me make sure I have this right, Susan,” Jean says, raising her eyebrows. “You think someone in the police did this?” 

“No, Jean,” Susan replies. “I _know_ it was a policeman who did this.” 

Lucy nods. “Of course,” she says, her voice soft. She looks up, earnest face set with resolve. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Jean may not immediately trust Millie’s intuition or Susan’s calculation, but she can’t argue with Lucy’s ability to sift through information. “It would be easy for, say, a detective to convince others we were wrong. We’re librarians and bar girls and housewives, nevermind that we’re all highly intelligent and capable. Crowley was a dangerous man, but they were fast to dismiss us before, why not now? Wainwright may believe us but he’s not the whole force.” 

“I suppose a corrupt detective could destroy evidence from inside, make it look as though Crowley only murdered Cavendish,” Jean muses. “You know, Susan, you may be right.”

“So what are we going to do?” Millie asks. There is no hesitation in her voice, and Susan’s heart lifts a little, because this is a woman who can come to blows with likely anything and brush herself off afterwards and ask what she can do. 

“What we did last time,” she answers, smiling wryly, first at Millie, then at Jean and Lucy. “Better.”


End file.
